20 \1 ;:d ...... '.' " \, -- .... . ..t. , y , '<k ...... / pi /",. l\ AvaUST 12, 1972 J eSSe For faculty they have experienced ap- pellate judges, general- ly Including a United States Supreme Court justice or two, and dis- tinguished law profes- sors. Since the appellate judges for whom the refresher course is de- signed are of a higher magnitude in the judi- cial constellation than any other judges except the nine justices of the United States Supreme Court, they annually constItute as august a student body as is to be found anywhere. A noted international law scholar, Wolfgang Friedmann, of Colum- bia University, who has been on the faculty of this seminar In the past, once told us how mov- ing he had found the . " 1 ' 1 0 d expenence. ve Ive in five countries," he said, "but in no other country would you find something like this- judges of such high stature humble ènough to come together and act as students for a 1 ' 1 " w 11 e. The cocktail party is a feature of the seminar, and we have attended several of the parties, including the first, which was gIven in 1956. The parties, to which the families of the judges are invited, are always held in the same place-a penthouse on Wash- ington Square-and they are much alike in atmosphere and quality. \Vhere these parties are concerned, we now consider ourself a strict constructionist, for we like the recurrent circumspect conviviality of the gathering and the re- current judicial shoptalk. ""That we had got to talking about wIth Judge Heffernan as we stood by the bar was judicia] opinions, from the literary point of view. Opinion writing is one of severa] subjects he is teaching at the current session. His favorite text, he told us, was "The Elements of Style," by \Villiam Strunk, J r., and E. B. \Vhite; he also recommended Theodore Bernstein's "The Careful \AT riter." He said it was much easier to write a stylish, vigorous dissent than a ma joritv opinion. "When you write a majority opinion, you have to express the views and preferences and doubts of all those judges, not just your own; ".'t<. . - - 1# ,:., >ø ((H ere we go again with the St. Francis bit." of ideals we need a new sense of limits. The word "idealism" has come to suggest a straining after the impos- sible In a tIme when our foresters are setting forest fires in Vietnam, and our meteorologists are busy making storms, and our bombs are equipped with tele- vision cameras, what we need to strain to do is to keep the impossihle from occurnng. . D OG-DAYS dialogue overheard at a Third .LL\. venue sidewalk cafe: CUSTOMER: How is your Beef Burgundy? \V AITRESS: There have been no complain ts. CUSTOMER: Then I'll have it. \V AITRESS: Very good. And what was your order? Judges al Fresco T HE first judge we found ourself rapping with at the party was Justice Nathan S. Heffernan, of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin. We were standing on the penthouse terrace ____t :, Q fqNl -...... ^ . . bv the bar, within easy reach of the hors d'oeuvres. He had a Scotch-and- water in one hand, and he was wear- ing a sharp outfit-a belted white linen sports jacket with brown slacks and white shoes. As he talked, we tried to picture how he must look when he is on the bench, personifying the majesty of the law. Under the sober black robes of justice, we reflected as we sipped our own Scotch, who knows what nattiness may lurk? The occasion that had brought us to the terrace and such thoughts was this summer's cocktail party for the participants in an appel- late judges' seminar being held at the New York University School of Law. Every year, around twenty appeals- court justices-members of state su- preme courts or federal circuit courts of appeals, together wIth members of Canadian appeals courts-gather here for two weeks for a kind of refresh- er course in appellate- judgemanship, whIch deals with such matters as court administration, opinion writing, federal- state relations, principles of statutory interpretations, and the nature and functions of the appellate judicial proc-